In vitro diagnostics (IVD) allows labs to assist in the diagnosis of disease based on assays performed on patient fluid samples. IVD includes various types of analytical tests and assays related to patient diagnosis and therapy that can be performed by analysis of a liquid sample taken from a patient's bodily fluids, or abscesses. These assays are typically conducted with automated clinical chemistry analyzers (analyzers) onto which fluid containers, such as tubes or vials containing patient samples have been loaded. The analyzer extracts a liquid sample from the vial and combines the sample with various reagents in special reaction cuvettes or tubes (referred to generally as reaction vessels). In some conventional systems, a modular approach is used for analyzers. A lab automation system can shuttle samples between one sample processing module (module) and another module. Modules may include one or more stations, including sample handling stations and testing stations (e.g., a unit that can specialize in certain types of assays or can otherwise provide testing services to the larger analyzer, which may include immunoassay (IA) and clinical chemistry (CC) stations. Some traditional IVD automation track systems comprise systems that are designed to transport samples from one fully independent module to another standalone module. This allows different types of tests to be specialized in two different stations or allows two redundant stations to be linked to increase the volume of sample throughput available. These lab automation systems, however, are often bottlenecks in multi-station analyzers. Relatively speaking, traditional lab automation systems lack large degrees of intelligence or autonomy to allow samples to independently move between stations.
In an exemplary prior art system, a friction track, much like a conveyor belt, shuttles individual carrier mechanisms, sometimes called pucks, or racks of containers between different stations. Samples may be stored in sample containers, such as test tubes that are placed into a puck by an operator or robot arm for transport between stations in an analyzer along the track. Samples can be identified by the analyzer, automation system, and operators using barcodes placed on each test tube carrying a sample. Barcodes can be placed using stickers when a fluid sample is obtained, such as in a hospital environment. An operator can take a sample tube and scan the barcode to pull up the identity of the sample on a terminal. When the sample is placed in a puck in the automation system, the puck can be rotated at points in the system to read the barcode. However, this requires round pucks as the entire puck is rotated. Similarly, when samples are placed into racks for transporting between machines or transporting within a machine, most racks have no ability to display barcodes for reading. Typically, samples must be removed from conventional racks before reading a barcode by hand. Some prior art racks include a window and a one-dimensional rack that allows a row of barcodes to be read, so long as each tube in the rack is oriented with the barcode in the window.
Currently, it is difficult to design an automation system without round pucks because of the need to obtain barcode information. Similarly, it would be desirable to allow tubes to be placed in racks without relying on the operator to orient each tube correctly in a desired direction, or in racks containing arrays of tubes. It is desirable to limit reliance on operators so that human error can be reduced.